Fujimori Extradition Case Stirs Past By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 2:16 a.m. ET LIMA, Peru (AP) -- In November 1991, hooded men armed with submachine guns with silencers stormed a barbecue in Lima's decrepit Barrios Altos district and sprayed the revelers with bullets. Fifteen people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy. The massacre was the first of two death squad killings to stain former President Alberto Fujimori's 10-year authoritarian regime, which collapsed when he fled to Japan during a corruption scandal in November 2000. Peruvian prosecutors hope the cases, included in a 700-page extradition request filed in Tokyo on Thursday, will persuade Japan to hand over Fujimori to face murder charges for authorizing the so-called ``Colina Group'' paramilitary death squad. Less than a year after the Barrios Altos massacre, the Colina Group, made up of army members, kidnapped nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University. Their incinerated bodies were found a year later on a barren hillside outside the capital. The victims in both massacres apparently were suspected of being rebel collaborators. As gruesome as the killings were, evidence made public so far allegedly linking the former president to the crimes is largely circumstantial and based on second-hand testimony. Japan has signaled it would reject Peru's request because Fujimori is now a Japanese citizen. Luis Vargas Valdivia, a special state attorney in the Fujimori case, said that months before the Barrios Altos massacre, Fujimori commended soldiers later accused of belonging to the Colina Group for their actions in the war against the Shining Path insurgency. In 1995, the Fujimori-controlled Congress approved a controversial amnesty law to protect military officers from prosecution for human rights abuses. Although the amnesty covered human rights violations committed since the beginning of the insurgency in 1980, critics argued that the real intent was to free 11 Colina Group members convicted for the La Cantuta killings. Miguel Jugo, director of Peruvian human rights group Aprodeh, said the government's case rests in part on second-hand testimony from two former death squad members and the former head of Peru's military, retired army Gen. Nicolas Hermoza Rios, who is imprisoned and awaiting prosecution on corruption charges. ``There are declarations by two former Colina operatives who have said that Alberto Fujimori knew about the killings and participated in the decisions to carry them out,'' Jugo said. Fujimori supporters have questioned the testimony. They point out that the two Colina Group members who testified against Fujimori say they were told about his involvement by superiors. Carlos Orellana, a Fujimori confidant who heads a new political party that will support a future campaign bid by the disgraced president, said prosecutors ignored testimony from other Colina Group members that does not support the accusation against Fujimori. ``Not just Fujimori supporters but constitutional experts say this a show,'' he said. ``These judicial proceedings are corrupted from head to toe.'' Fujimori has said the extradition process is useless because he will return to Peru someday to take control of the party. Special investigator Vargas Valdivia is not fazed by the criticism. ``It isn't necessary for us to present all of the evidence of his guilt with this petition,'' he said. ``We need to show that the charges aren't politically motivated and that there is enough evidence to warrant a trail.'' Fujimori brimmed with confidence in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press in Tokyo, saying there was no way that Peruvian prosecutors can pin him to the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings. He recalled proudly that he had engineered a crackdown on the rebels. He said the guerrillas were ``among the world's worst at that time.'' ``Within that context vicious crimes like these occur,'' he said. ``But I have no link to these criminal acts, so the charge is baseless.''